When was puritanism a popular movement

Witchcraft in Salem Village. The First Great Awakening. Religious Pluralism in the Middle Colonies. Church and State in British North America.

The Church of England in Early America. Divining America Advisors and Staff. The Puritans were a varied group of religious reformers who emerged within the Church of England during the middle of the sixteenth century. They shared a common Calvinist theology and common criticisms of the Anglican Church and English society and government. Their numbers and influence grew steadily, culminating in the English Civil War of the s and the rule of Oliver Cromwell in the s.

But it persisted for much longer as a vital force in those parts of British North America colonized by two groups of Puritans who gradually cut their ties to the Church of England and formed separate denominations.

One group, the Congregationalists, settled Plymouth in the s and then Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and Rhode Island in the s. Another group, the Presbyterians, who quickly came to dominate the religious life of Scotland and later migrated in large numbers to northern Ireland, also settled many communities in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania during the late seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth century.

They believed that the civil government should strictly enforce public morality by prohibiting vices like drunkenness, gambling, ostentatious dress, swearing, and Sabbath-breaking. They also wished to purge churches of every vestige of Roman Catholic ritual and practice—the ruling hierarchies of bishops and cardinals, the elaborate ceremonies in which the clergy wore ornate vestments and repeated prayers from a prescribed liturgy.

Puritanism remained the dominant cultural force in that area into the 19th century. Associated exclusively with no single theology or definition of the church — although many were Calvinists — the English Puritans were known at first for their extremely critical attitude regarding the religious compromises made during the reign of Elizabeth I. Many of them were graduates of Cambridge University, and they became Anglican priests to make changes in their local churches.

They encouraged direct personal religious experience, sincere moral conduct, and simple worship services. Worship was the area in which Puritans tried to change things most; their efforts in that direction were sustained by intense theological convictions and definite expectations about how seriously Christianity should be taken as the focus of human existence.

After James I became king of England in , Puritan leaders asked him to grant several reforms. At the Hampton Court Conference , however, he rejected most of their proposals, which included abolition of bishops. Puritanism, best expressed by William Ames and later by Richard Baxter, gained much popular support early in the 17th century. The government and the church hierarchy, however, especially under Archbishop William Laud, became increasingly repressive, causing many Puritans to emigrate.

Those who remained formed a powerful element within the parliamentarian party that defeated Charles I in the English Civil War. After the war the Puritans remained dominant in England until , but they quarreled among themselves Presbyterian dominance gave way to Independent, or congregational, control under Oliver Cromwell and proved even more intolerant than the old hierarchy.

The restoration of the monarchy also restored Anglicanism, and the Puritan clergy were expelled from the Church of England under the terms of the Act of Uniformity Thereafter English Puritans were classified as Nonconformists. Puritanism was a religious reformation movement that began in England in the late s.

Its initial goal was removing any remaining links to Catholicism within the Church of England after its separation from the Catholic Church. To do this, Puritans sought to change the structure and ceremonies of the church. They also wanted broader lifestyle changes in England to align with their strong moral beliefs. Some Puritans emigrated to the New World and established colonies built around churches that fit those beliefs.

Some Puritans believed in total separation from the Anglican Church, while others simply sought reform and wished to remain a part of the church. The belief that the church should not have any rituals or ceremonies not found in the Bible united the two factions. They believed that the government should enforce morals and punish behavior such as drunkenness and swearing. However, Puritans did believe in religious freedom and generally respected the differences in belief systems of those outside the Church of England.

Some of the major disputes between the Puritans and the Anglican Church regarded the beliefs that priests should not wear vestments clerical clothing , that ministers should actively spread the word of God, and that the church hierarchy of bishops, archbishops, etc. Regarding their relationships with God, Puritans believed that salvation was entirely up to God and that God had chosen only a select few to be saved, yet no one could know if they were among this group.

They also believed that each person should have a personal covenant with God. The Puritans were influenced by Calvinism and adopted its beliefs in predestination and the sinful nature of man. Puritans believed that all people must live by the Bible and should have a deep familiarity with the text. To achieve this, Puritans placed a strong emphasis on literacy and education. Puritanism first emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries in England as a movement to remove all vestiges of Catholicism from the Anglican Church.

The Anglican Church first separated from Catholicism in , but when Queen Mary took the throne in , she reverted it to Catholicism. Some scholars have called this form of government a theocracy. To understand the Puritans and the nature of their society, it is necessary to grasp some of the theological principles of Calvinism. He reasoned that since God has infinite power and knowledge He knows everything that has ever occurred in the universe and everything that will occur.

Thus, since God knows what every human on earth has done and will do, He already knows who is predestined to receive His grace, have a conversion experience, and spend eternity in heaven. No person can change what is predestined so free will plays no role in the process of salvation. The clergy advised their church members that they should pray, study the Bible, and hope to receive grace, but they also must accept that if an individual is not predestined to be saved, there is nothing that he or she can do to save themselves.

When a person receives grace, he or she is quiet aware of the powerful experience, and a congregation is made up of those joyful converted souls whom they call saints. Many may have lived very virtuous lives, but if they do not experience grace and conversion, they will not be saved. While a large percentage of the first arrivals were saints, many of their children were not. To be sure that the church leaders were not fooled into admitting hypocrites who give false testimony of their conversion, the clergy required applicants for membership to give a detailed personal narrative of their conversion experience before the congregation and answer questions.

Because many who did not experience grace became discouraged, the clergy tried to find ways to encourage good behavior even as they knew that only the few were predestined for salvation.

This problem of controlling the disgruntled and unconverted produced many problems for the colony. Although most of those who migrated to America in shared a common Calvinist theology and the experience of having been persecuted in England for their faith, there was by no means unanimity regarding how they would practice their religion. Each congregation was autonomous and followed the rules of its own written covenant, and each minister had his own ideas on how to apply the various doctrines of Calvinism.

As the colony grew, increasing numbers did not embrace Calvinism at all or even Christianity. Different dissenting groups and sects arose including Quakers, Anabaptists, Millenarians, Baptists, Familists, Enthusiasts, and Antinomians. The Congregationalists sought to purge these other groups from the colony, and they agreed with Rev. Such problems with religious diversity only increased with time.

The most serious and destructive case of dissent arose from within the original group of settlers and involved a very prominent family. Having immigrated to Boston in to follow their minister John Cotton, Anne and William Hutchinson quickly became prominent figures in the community.

William was elected deputy to the Massachusetts Court, and Anne continued her community service as a nurse midwife and spiritual adviser to women. As people grew weary of not receiving grace and others faked conversion experiences, all the clergy could do was to encourage people to pray, study the scriptures, and await grace and conversion. But this doctrine was frustrating for many who felt that living a virtues life of good deeds should count for something toward receiving grace and salvation.

When the Reverend John Wilson, who was the pastor of the congregation in which Cotton was the teacher, seemed to go too far in the direction of suggesting that good works might lead to salvation, the Hutchinsons were disturbed.

Disturbed by what she heard as heresy, Anne began to hold weekly meetings in her home to discuss theology. She and her husband gathered others who sought to oust Reverend John Wilson, but the clergy closed ranks and declared Hutchinson to be the heretic.

Unlike her husband, she refused to recant her opinion and was subjected to a sensational trial that included suggestions that she was in love with John Cotton. Cotton was forced to condemn her, and she was excommunicated. When she and her family were banished in , they moved to Rhode Island for five years and then to New York where all of her family but one was killed in an Indian raid. While the Hutchinson case is the most famous of many theological and political upheavals that occurred in the first decades of the colonies, Roger Williams was also disturbed by the preparation doctrine, and he disputed the use being made of Biblical typology to construct such notions as the Puritans being the new Chosen People and Boston being the new Zion.

In addition, he challenged the role of the clergy in political and judicial issues as he believed in the separation of church and state, and he deeply opposed the taking of land from the Native peoples without compensation. Yet another leading clergyman, Thomas Hooker, became involved in a major dispute with John Winthrop over political franchise.

While Winthrop held that only those who had been converted could be church members, vote, and participate in the government, Hooker held that any adult male property holder should be able to vote and hold office regardless of church membership.